But Really
by Noir Lime Canuto
Summary: He wanted to recede into nothingness, she wanted to settle down, and it scared him. The first time it happened was when he'd made her laugh so hard that tears found her cheeks... The worst part, the worst part of all was that he'd meant it. / / One-shot in three parts, fluffy with an edge.


It was another tea-party. At first, after the war, there had been absolutely none. Then, slowly but surely, they gained a new significance in wizarding society. You were to invite mudbloods, politicians, reporters, and writers. Let them see you had changed, let them see you as harmless. You were to attend every tea-party so that they could keep up with you, so they could turn you into one of the Prophet's fanciful characters. If you didn't like tea-parties, clearly you were not reformed.

Draco hated it. He sat, sipping some bitter black flavour on the outskirts of the garden. Then she sat beside him. At first she thought he was a reporter, the way her back was kept so straight, then he recognized her.

"Astoria?"

She nodded.

They had never known each other in school, at least not well. She was younger than him, a female, and in Ravenclaw. Not usually the sort of person he would seek out as friend or target. He had known her sister Daphne, one of Pansy's vapid friends. He knew her as the quiet one with chocolate hair. He figured she was sort of cute, but dull.

He needed a listener who could talk, and for a while the only one available was Pansy. Now she was married, Pansy McLaggen, with two little snub-nosed children to whom he presented taffies when he visited. Which was nice, for her. She always needed the good-guy villain. Draco was never much of a good guy, nor a real villain, so it was as well.

"I was wondering if I could ask you something."

Or maybe she was a reporter, who just looked like a prettier, blonder Daphne.

"Go ahead, then." He held onto his sigh.

"Do you think she knows that that fox isn't dead yet?"

He looked to where she was pointing, at her own aunt, who was wearing one of those extravagantly ugly hats with the broad brim and the dead animals and berries crammed onto it. Except the fox would wink at you if you made eye-contact, and flutter its ears playfully.

Draco turned back to the other blonde and nodded solumnly. "I'm sure she caught it herself."

The girl, or lady at this age-though it still felt like they were all children, at just past twenty-she giggled. It was a clipped sound, like little spurts. An embarrassing sound, but genuine. He smiled in return.

"Imagine her, though," she said, her own grin turning devilish, "Chasing a fox about the garden, hollering about how she wouldn't have to do this herself if the ministry hadn't taken away her _sodding elves_."

Draco snorted. "Sounds like my mother. You know I have to cook for her? For my own good, though. She burns everything and she'd still have me eat it." It was the sort of detail he couldn't relay to one of his mixed-blood friends. They were all supposed to move out after school, but purebloods were expected to live with their parents until they married.

The lady grinned. "If you'd like to come over for biscuits sometime, I promise I won't burn them."

It was strange how she scared him. At first she'd been fascinating, all of her remarks were witty, or cute, or marvellous. It got scary when he started to see them coming, to hope for them when she wasn't there. It was scary how used to her he'd gotten.

They were too young. It felt like he was ancient, like he's lived his life. The war had tired him, the courts had wrung out anything he had left. He hated the tea-parties, but he wouldn't have left the manor if it hadn't been for them.

He wanted to recede into nothingness, she wanted to settle down, and it scared him.

The first time it happened was when he'd made her laugh so hard that tears found her cheeks. She shook her head despite herself and grinned at him. "Merlin," she laughed, "I love you."

It was the sort of thing you say to a friend, something you say in passing. The response is to laugh along with them, to jokingly say, "I know." Instead, Draco smiled a little too softly. Instead he said, a little too quietly, "I love you, too."

The worst part, the worst part of all was that he'd meant it. There was some sort of pull in his chest, or his stomach, or his forehead. Something pulled him towards her. He tried to keep his distance, to observe her, the creases in her forehead when she couldn't hold back her biggest smile, the dimples that formed on her cheeks only then.

He was afraid of loving her but he was even more afraid of stopping.

Utterly spitting in the face of pureblood tradition, Astoria proposed to him.

They were both crying slow, hot tears.

"Of course I love you, but you can't love me."

"Of course I can! I do! Every moment of every day, I do!"

"I know, it's just, you can't marry me. Not me."

"Yes, I can. I love you, Draco Malfoy, and you love me."

"But you can't, you can't love me. I'm not good for you."

"Sometimes I think you're the only goodness in the world."

"I should have told you no."

"What?"

"When you asked me for biscuits. I should have told you no, that I was too broken for biscuits. I'll only hurt you, in the end. I only disappoint people, Astoria."

She laughed bitterly. "Bit late for that now."

"I know, I know. But... I can't go on like this."

"Like what?"

"Happy. Like nothing happened."

"Happened, Draco, past tense."

"You don't know what I've done, Astoria."

"I know exactly what you've done! You tagged along with death eaters, you raised your want to Dumbledor. You've never killed anyone, Draco. You were a schoolyard bully, and now you're a man. And I love you. I love you, I love you. I love the man and I love the death eater and I love the bully. You can't talk me out of it because it's not a choice I made."

"But-"

"But nothing. You are marrying me Draco Malfoy because you know I want children and I will not marry anyone besides you."

"But-"

"No. You're marrying me."

"But really?"

"Yes. Our children will be blond."

And then he gave up. He didn't deserve her, the brown of her eyes or her absolute need to fix every broken bird she found. He didn't deserve her, but he wanted her all the same, and in the end, Draco Malfoy would always get what he wanted.


End file.
